Introduced in 2023, the Charles R. Saunders Prize ($1,750 value) is awarded each year to an emerging or early-career writer with a book-length speculative fiction work-in-progress that shows promise and career-advancing merit. Priority is given to writers from equity-deserving communities.
For questions about this prize, contact program lead Linda Hudson at wits@writers.ns.ca.
As of 2027, the Charles R. Saunders Prize includes a stipend ($1,000 cash); three meetings with a literary advisor ($200 value); and a private, one-week writing residency ($550 value).
- The stipend ($1,000 cash) is intended to support the recipient’s literary activities during the winter and spring following the submission deadline. Literary activities during this ‘prize period’ may include drafting new writing, revising existing writing, working with an editor, submitting writing for publication, undertaking creative mentorships or professional training, and other relevant activities.
- Three advisory meetings through WFNS’s Coffee Chats program ($200 value) are offered during the prize period. Conducted by phone or video chat, advisory meetings are intended to help the recipient assess and recalibrate their writing strategies, troubleshoot creative and professional challenges, plan future career development, and prepare to make the most of their Jampolis Cottage residency.
- A private, one-week residency through WFNS’s Jampolis Cottage Residency Program ($550 value) is offered in the summer or fall following the prize period.
The endowment for this prize was established in memory of journalist and speculative fiction author Charles R. Saunders (1946 – 2020) by his journalism colleagues, literary friends, and readers. Saunders’s speculative fiction, particularly his Imaro series, was built on Black heroes and African themes.
Prize eligibility recognizes the barriers to literary creation & recognition faced by speculative fiction writers—particularly those from equity-deserving communities.
Norman Ho
2026 Charles R. Saunders Prize
Man Long 'Norman' Ho is an emerging writer and director from Hong Kong, now based in Nova Scotia. A ReelWorld Emerging 20, RBC YFF Mentorship, and DOC Atlantic Breakthrough Program alum, his debut short, Spud Island?, was nominated at the 76th Yorkton Film Festival. He is a recipient of the Grand Jury Prize in the 2025 ScreenCraft Family Screenplay Competition and the IRSA Newcomers to Canada Award at the 2022 Island Literary Awards. He is currently the writer-in-residence at Eyelevel Artist Run Centre.
Norman’s prize-winning submission is an excerpt from his speculative novel-in-progress, The Neroli Rescue, a socio-political survival sci-fi about miners from diverse backgrounds trapped underground after a catastrophic collapse on a distant asteroid mining colony.
Nailah Tataa
2025 Charles R. Saunders Prize
Nailah Tataa is a ritual-based writer, artist, and facilitator in Kjipuktuk. They are currently working on an article for Visual Arts Nova Scotia and learning the craft of writing about curation.
Nailah's prize-winning submission is an excerpt from their collection of interconnected stories exploring afro-futurism and speculative eco-fiction.
Theo Feehan-Peters
2024 Charles R. Saunders Prize
Theo Feehan-Peters is a software developer by trade who lives in Windsor, Nova Scotia. After discovering creative writing through game development, he has fallen in love with the craft. Theo grew up in the United States, but Canada has always been his home—particularly Cape Breton, where his parents are from.
Theo's prize-winning submission is an excerpt from his speculative novel-in-progress, Paradise, a loose retelling of the war in Heaven from Lucifer's perspective, set in a cyberpunk dystopia ruled by angels. He is developing this manuscript through a five-month MacLeod Mentorship with author Tom Ryan.
Charles Robert Saunders (1946 – 2020) was a Black author and journalist and the founder of the “sword and soul” literary genre with his Imaro novels. During his long career, he wrote novels, non-fiction, screenplays, and radio plays.
Born in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, US, in 1946, he earned a psychology degree from Lincoln University. In 1969, when the US draft summoned him to fight in Vietnam, he instead moved to Ontario, Canada.
The experience of exile led him to create Imaro, his hero of an alternative Africa called Nyumbani, and he published three Imaro novels with DAW Books in the 1980s. In 1985, Hal-Con invited Charles as a starring writer in their sci-fi and fantasy convention in Halifax. Charles quickly felt at home with the African Nova Scotian community and relocated to Halifax that same year.
When Charles’s publisher cut off the Imaro series after three of the planned five books, he turned his talents to writing nonfiction about his new home. Starting in 1989, he began working for Halifax Daily News, first as an editor, then as a columnist focusing on Black issues. Throughout the 1990s, he produced journalism and books about Black Canadians, educating white readers as he gave a new voice to his adopted community.
He continued to work on his fiction in private, completing the Imaro series and breaking new ground with other books. He wrote two novels in the Dossouye saga of a woman warrior fighting for acceptance in her own alternate Africa, as well as Damballa, his first book in the style of a 1930s pulp novel to star a Black cast. His Abengoni series explored a world where white and Black civilizations meet as equals and become partners.
When Halifax Daily News closed suddenly in 2008, Charles retreated into private life. With a small team of friends and colleagues in the US, he republished the Imaro series up to book four, both Dossouye novels, and many other works.
During the COVID-19 lockdown in May, 2020, Charles died alone in his Dartmouth apartment. He was buried in an unmarked grave at an unknown location. When friends learned of this, they searched for him across Nova Scotia and found his remains at the Dartmouth Memorial Gardens. Thousands of dollars were raised to install a bronze grave marker for Charles and a stone monument engraved with the image of Imaro.
His impact as a writer continues to grow after his death, as new generations discover his work and find it to be life-changing.
In 2024, Charles was posthumously nominated for induction into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is grateful to Jon Tattrie for providing details on Charles’s life & works and for spearheading the endowment for the Charles R. Saunders Prize.